Next week, La-La Land will release a second volume of music from the 60s WWII TV series THE RAT PATROL, featuring not only library cues composed for the show by Dominic Frontiere but also Alex North's unused score for the series pilot.

Quartet has announced three new CDs -- Alan Silvestri's score for the notorious E.T. um...homage, MAC AND ME (co-starring Ronald McDonald!); Pino Donaggio's score for the telekinesis thriller PATRICK, a remake of Richard Franklin's Australian late-70s cult classic (scored by Brian May in most countries but featuring a Goblin score in other areas); and an expanded version of Riz Ortolani's score for 1977's Australia-set gialloLA RAGAZZA DAL PIGIAMA GIALLO (aka The Pyjama Girl Case), starring Ray Milland and Mel Ferrer.

Music Box has announced three upcoming, limited edition soundtrack CDs -- reissues of Ennio Morricone's scores for LE PROFESSIONEL and LE MARGINAL; and a disc pairing two scores by Pierre Bachelet, LE DERNIER AMANT ROMANTIQUE and CAPITAINE X.

Varese Sarabande has announced three new upcoming score CDs -- STRIKE BACK, featuring music from the third and fourth seasons of the action TV series, scored by Scottish composer Scott Shields (Waking the Dead) and due on May 27; THE SIGNAL, the new science-fiction thriller starring Laurence Fishburne, Olivia Cooke (Bates Motel, The Quiet Ones) and young Australian hunk du jour Brenton Thwaites (Oculus, Maleficent, The Giver), with music by Nima Fakhrara; and HIDDEN MOON, a romantic drama starring Wes Bentley and Ana Serradilla which received a brief L.A. release in 2012, with music by Oscar winner Luis Bacalov (Il Postino, Django).

The latest release from Buysoundtrax presents Maurice Jarre's electronic score for the 1986 HBO thriller APOLOGY, starring Lesley-Ann Warren and Peter Weller. The limited edition CD features one cue not included in the original Varese Sarabande LP.(Correction: the contents of the CD are actually the same as the LP - the orignial Varese LP cover erroneously omitted one of the cues. Thank you, "GoblinScore," for the updated information)

May 2 - Van Alexander born (1915)
May 2 - Satyajit Ray born (1921)
May 2 - Elliot Goldenthal born (1954)
May 2 - Aram Khachaturian died (1978)
May 2 - Recording sessions begin for Danny Elfman's score for Batman Returns (1992)
May 2 - Recording sessions begin for John Ottman's score for Orphan (2009)
May 3 - Hugo Friedhofer born (1901)
May 3 - Delia Derbyshire born (1937)
May 3 - David Raksin begins recording his score for Two Weeks in Another Town (1962)
May 4 - Albert Glasser died (1998)
May 5 - Patrick Gowers born (1936)
May 5 - Andre Previn begins recording his score for House of Numbers (1957)
May 5 - Recording sessions begin for Christopher Young's score for Species (1995)
May 6 - Recording sessions begin for Bronislau Kaper's score to The Glass Slipper (1954)
May 6 - Recording begins on Alfred Newman and Hugo Friedhofer's score to The Bravados in Munich, Germany (1958)
May 6 - Tom Chase born (1965)
May 6 - Michel Legrand begins recording his score to Ice Station Zebra (1968)
May 6 - Ron Jones records his score for the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Neutral Zone" (1988)
May 7 - Jack Elliott born (1914)
May 7 - Anne Dudley born (1956)
May 8 - Nathan Van Cleave born (1910)

DID THEY MENTION THE MUSIC?

BEARS - George Fenton

"But through all its adornments -- the narration, the punched-up foley, the sweeping orchestral accompaniment -- 'Bears' keeps the emphasis on its spectacular visuals, from widescreen aerial vistas of Alaskan mountains to claustrophobic close-ups of bears huddled in their dens to slow-motion claw-to-claw combat."

Genevieve Koski, The Dissolve

"The soundtrack strikes epic highs during the Peter Jackson aerial shots through Alaskan mountain ranges, and bangs on an irksome 'Duck Dynasty' guitar whenever bears act goofy, scratching their backs on trees or flopping in the water."

Chris Packham, Village Voice

"The inherent drama is boosted by George Fenton’s seriously symphonic score and contrasts with those delightfully loose, animated voiceovers courtesy of Reilly, a big teddy bear of an actor if ever there were one."

Michael Rechtshaffen, Hollywood Reporter

BRICK MANSIONS - Trevor Morris

"But director Camille Delamarre, a longtime editor on Besson productions making his directing debut, doesn’t want you thinking too much or feeling too deeply. He wants to wow you to a thumping techno beat, and he achieves that for the most part in his elaborately choreographed (if overly-edited) set pieces and chases."

"This heavy-handed movie is simply a sermon its makers think we all should hear. That absolutism is one reason it's nowhere near its obvious model, the rightfully exalted 'Field of Dreams.' Here, subtlety is a victim of faith. 'Heaven' opens with gorgeous images and a gentle Copland-esque score that would fit right into 'Dreams.'”

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News

"'Heaven Is for Real' has exactly the same structure as one of those family horror movies about a weird kid who is possessed by diabolical forces and gradually reveals depths of disturbing secret knowledge. Only here the cheerful music, sunny cinematography, and people who smile all the time are meant to convince us the supernatural events are not sinister. (In fairness, when sad things happen the people in the movie look sad, albeit briefly.)"

Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

"Making a handsome stand-in for Nebraska farm country, the film’s Winnipeg locations are lushly photographed in widescreen by Dean Semler, though the film lingers perhaps a beat too long on gently rustling stalks of wheat for its own good. Reilly’s quavering rendition of one of the great hymns, 'Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,' offers a lovely respite from the relentless assault of Nick Glennie-Smith’s score."

Justin Chang, Variety

ISLAND OF LEMURS: MADAGASCAR - Mark Mothersbaugh

"The music is shamelessly entertaining, and the warmth of Morgan Freeman's narration conveys the possibility that, for all the imminent peril, the lemurs of this enchanted forest still have a fighting chance."

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

"Along those lines, Mark Mothersbaugh’s score is suitably lighthearted but sometimes a tad intrusive when natural sound might have been more effective. And the use of a cover of The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” as a couple of lemurs meet for the first time (with the hope that they’ll eventually mate) is cringe-inducingly on the nose. But these are minor quibbles in a movie that solidly fulfills its purpose."

Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

"Narrated with bemused candor by, who else, Morgan Freeman, the corny script strains to add eco-tourist weight to footage of dancing and pouncing lemurs (the ring-tailed variety are said to 'live on the outskirts and launch raids on farms below,' which cues the Ennio Morricone-esque music, pushing a slight agenda of anthropomorphism)."

Nick McCarthy, Slant Magazine

"The film’s slyly attention-grabbing camera subjects are not always ideally served by either the giantscreen format or the use of 3D, which are typically better suited to dynamic and immersive environments rather than extreme animal closeups of the sort on display here. Still, Douglas’ images are cleanly composed and smoothly edited (by Beth Siegel), if at times overaccompanied by Mark Mothersbaugh’s score, which too often surges when silence would have been more effective."

"'Oculus'' creepiness is intensified by an eerily thrumming electronic score. The supernatural thriller is at its most enthralling when it sets up the siblings in mind-bending scenes in which it's nearly impossible to distinguish between imagination and reality."

Claudia Puig, USA Today

"The Newton Brothers’ ominously pulsing score is wildly different from the Lalo Schifrin-style funky ’70s sounds they provided for Toronto fest closer 'Life of Crime.'"

Dennis Harvey, Variety

PROXY - The Newton Brothers

"Parker commissioned a score by his regular collaborators, the Newton Brothers ('Oculus'), and they turned in crazed orchestral cues reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann and Pino Donaggio; their music is used sparingly, but its frenzied presence serves as a reminder that even the film’s minimalism is a form of expressionism. Low-budget genre pictures as bold and ambitious as 'Proxy' don’t come around often; even when they do, few of them boast execution that’s as accomplished as the concept. More so-called 'midnight movies' could stand to be so inventively offbeat."

"Parker draws out mundane scenes in a manner that emphasizes the intermingling of dread and banality; you develop the sense early on that any sort of idyll is temporary, likely to be shattered at a moment's notice. The writer-director tries to turn the gruesome into high drama -- watch for 'Hannibal'-esque blood spatter flying through the air in slo-mo as tense string music crescendos in the background."

Michael Nordine, Village Voice

"The movie's atmosphere takes cues from the rampant lunacy of its cast, relying on a constant sense of misdirection and a disquieting mood that dominates most scenes—even as it teeters on the edge of outright campiness. The whole ensemble looks constantly shocked, angry, and demented; the music has overwrought spookiness that constantly mocks their macabre situation. Yet there's a definite strength to the movie’s use of its unnerving rhythms to evoke its female protagonists’ maternal paranoia."

Eric Kohn, IndieWIRE

"The developments grow more macabre, as everyone acquires their own revenge agendas and proves quite willing to transgress violently in realizing them. En route, some plot holes are left unfilled, while character backgrounding and psychological detailing are not priorities in Parker and Kevin Donner’s screenplay. Still, the diabolical reversals of fortune and the tightly controlled, cruelly dispassionate directorial tenor -- striking a Hitchcockian chord, as does the Newton Brothers’ Bernard Herrmann-like orchestral score -- will keep most viewers off-kilter enough that they won’t think too hard about the film’s overall credibility."

"So why does the movie leave one cold? The early moments don't: The general despair of Lomax, his friendship with fellow vet Finlay (the stellar Stellan Skarsgard), his joy at love in bloom with Patti (Kidman), his subsequent mental disorder caused by memory and dreams, are all genuine and emotionally engaging. Phillips' pictures and David Hirschfelder's music only enhance the mix."

John Anderson, Newsday

"Teplitzky is a proven talent with an excellent crew, but even this film’s technical merits illustrate how disconnected it is: David Hirschfelder’s lush score is missing a memorable theme that might weave the disparate time periods together, while the pointedly composed wide shots in which the adult Lomax is trying to hold himself together are never meaningfully contrasted against his experiences as a young man."

David Ehrlich, The Dissolve

"Those who walk in completely uninitiated may suspect, based on the early scenes, that they’re about to experience the middle-age answer to 'Before Sunrise.' (Only the throb of ominous music over the opening credits betrays the darker direction to come.)"

A.A. Dowd, The Onion AV Club

"The secret weapon here is Australian composer David Hirschfelder, who previously collaborated with Teplitzky on 'Better Than Sex' and before that on such indelible Oz scores as 'Strictly Ballroom' and 'Shine,' whose timeless theme conveys all of the hurt and forgiveness which the film otherwise underplays onscreen."

Peter Debruge, Variety

"Composer David Hirschfelder contributes a robust dramatic score that conveys more emotion than anything onscreen in this nobly inert film."

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

REFUGE - The Milk Carton Kids

"Lilting, solemn country-folk music plays over shots of dreary scenery and pensive faces."

Sam Weisberg, Village Voice

WALKING WITH THE ENEMY - Timothy Williams

"Unfortunately, the nuances of these intense scenarios are lost in favor of action beats and a bombastic orchestral score. The brightly lit, sepia-tinted look resembles a TV miniseries, and this movie packs enough plot for one, too. While a noble, inspiring story, the filmmaking is blunt rather than intelligent."

Miriam Bale, New York Daily News

"Since narrative film is still the best way to mass communicate, there’s a moral obligation to celebrate a movie like this in some way. But when the movie is bad, as is the case here, does it do more harm than good? In the spaces between the hackneyed dialogue, ham-handed score, and poor acting, 'Walking With The Enemy' eventually wins its sole victory: a desire to look the story up on Wikipedia later that day. That may be a small triumph, but it’s hardly the mark of fine cinema."

Jordan Hoffman, The Dissolve

"Despite an overactive score, the production is solid in its marshalling of resources and setpieces -- tanks, troops, battle sequences, bombed-out buildings -- that wouldn’t seem out of place in a much more expensive, studio-financed project."

As much as I wish it were true, there are no extra cues on APOLOGY. The LP very annoyingly 'hid' a cue from side 2 on the outer jacket (it was correct on the LP label itself). I remember balking at buying it in the 80's, after adding up the times thinking $10 for a 25min. LP??? Fortunately, it's a great score, and was closer to 30mins. anyway, I'm glad its coming to CD.